Sticking to a workout schedule is hard. Luckily for me, I get to swim in a pool every day. I zone out driving there, and once I get there, it would be a waste of gas and time not to just get in and get better. It works surprisingly well.

I think other people can do the same. To get you started, I wrote four one-hour long workouts you can do at lap swim.

Before you read them, though, here are some basic things you need to know: down the pool once is 25 yards, and down and back would be 50 yards. With that, a 200 would be four laps of the pool.

On the kick, use a kickboard or go on your back if there are no kickboards available. You should also look up a stroke (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle) if you don’t know how to do it (or just choose one of the other three workouts).

Inexperienced (850 yards)

200 freestyle warm-up

100 kick choice

 rest 

5x 50’s freestyle with 15 seconds rest between 50’s

1-minute rest

100 freestyle build (start slow and get faster near the end)

200 freestyle cooldown

Some Experience (1000 yards)

200 freestyle warm-up

2x 100 kick with 20 seconds rest between 100’s

choice rest

3x 50’s freestyle race with 15 seconds rest between 50’s

3x 50’s backstroke race with 20 seconds rest between 50’s

1-minute rest

1x 100 freestyle race

200 freestyle cooldown

Experienced (1200 yards)

200 freestyle warm-up

2x 100 kick with 15 seconds rest between 100’s

choice rest

3x 50’s freestyle race with 10 seconds rest between 50’s

3x 50’s IM order (one 50 each stroke, in order of butterfly backstroke breaststroke) with 10 seconds rest between 50’s

1-minute rest

3x 100 freestyle race 15 seconds rest between 100’s

200 freestyle cooldown

Expert (1620 yards)

200 freestyle warm-up

3x 100’s kick with 10 seconds rest between 100’s

choice rest

3x 50’s freestyle race with 10 seconds rest between 50’s

3x 100’s freestyle race 15 seconds rest between 100’s

3x 50’s choice race with 10 seconds rest between 50’s

3x 100’s choice race 15 seconds rest between 100’s

2-minute rest

2x 100’s freestyle sprint 10 seconds rest between 100’s

200 cooldown

Then again, most people probably won’t have access to lap swim. A good pool 15 minutes from Liberty is Boehm Pool in Issaquah, but if you can’t get to a pool, don’t worry: here are some 30-minute on-land exercises a swimmer would do.

Easy

30s crunches

30s Russian twist*

30s flutter kick

15 v-up

20 squats*

20 squat jumps

x2

Medium

30s crunches

30s Russian twist*

30s flutter kick

x2

10 v-up

15 squats*

15 squat jumps

x3

Hard

30s crunches

30s Russian twist*

30s flutter kick

15 v-up

20 squats*

20 squat jumps

x3

*can be weighted